Stuck in the middle with you
by Lillythemarshmellowqueen
Summary: Sakura ponders. NaruSakuSasu.


**Title: In the Middle with you**

**Fandom: Naruto**

**Pairing: NaruSakuSasu (and all other variations)**

**Rating: T (For Language and some adult Themes)**

**Warning: This fic/drabble is a threesome pairing, if you're not into that don't read although there isn't anything all that heavy. There may however be some Adult themes.**

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**In the middle with you**

She's been asked, by close friends and not so close friends. People are curious and it's not your average relationship and they question it.

"So who sleeps in the middle?"

At first she thinks it's silly, a joke, some subtle set down. She passes it off with a laugh.

But when it becomes a repeated inquiry she relents somewhat and gives then the answer they are looking for.

"_I _do."

But when she's alone, she laughs at their inanity.

'Who sleeps in the middle?' What kind of question is that? It's not a competition. What significance does it have?

The middle, like when she was a child and she would have nightmares only to run to her parent's room and jump into bed between them. She slept in the middle then. With a pang she thinks of Sasuke. How did he live with the nightmares when his parents were gone and he had no-one to sleep around him? _He_ didn't get to be in the middle and he was left alone, so alone. And Sakura wants him to be in the middle when they sleep tonight.

Her heart wrenches further as her thoughts turn to Naruto. Where Sasuke knew what he was missing, Naruto never had anyone. He never knew what it was like to be surrounded by family or love; he had no-one at all. And Sakura wants to cry and she hopes to hold him in her arms tonight.

But if she does that Sasuke will be on the outside and if she brings Sasuke in the middle then Naruto will be on the outside again.

And because she sees them, she sees how much they need her. She wants to hold them both. She wants to hold them both in the middle. And that's just not possible.

And sometimes when she asks, pleads and cajoles Sasuke allows himself to be placed in between herself and Naruto. Knowing that they are around him, fulfilling him she sleeps a little easier.

And sometimes she just gives a nod of the head and quick little smile and a jubilant grateful grin later Naruto is holding both Sasuke and her to his sides. And she sleeps easier knowing that the fox boy is in the middle, protected and loved and just held.

More often than not though she ends up between them, whether it's after a night of passionate love making or an exhausting day of missions. They fall around her and Naruto holds onto her tightly. Sasuke turns his back to them like always but his leg nudges her and sometimes during the night her hand entwines with his and she's holding them both.

But she doesn't sleep easier because she knows how much it hurts. She can see the pain, as clear as day or maybe crystal in the case of Sasuke. It's there in their eyes when she turns to smile at the other. A pain they themselves can't see.

And they still don't know but they need her and she wants.

She wants so much. She wants to hold, to love, to caress.

She wants to surround them and keep them and stop the pain. The pain built up over years and years and she's like the flood gates that can't always stop the flood. And she can't because they are broken.

Both broken in different and similar ways. And nothing can erase their past, nothing can bring back a clan, nothing can bring back a family, a childhood.

So she lies between then and she holds her broken boys, like lost toys.

And sometimes when it becomes too much, Naruto curls around her, his head on her breast and Sasuke clutches her tightly his face in the crook of her neck. And when it becomes too much the memories, the loss, the emptiness and the tears soak her clothes, her chest and her neck. And they cry together and she holds then and strokes their hair and kisses away the tears. And she lies in the middle and lets them cry. Lets them cry out the pain that no-one sees.

And she cries too. But she doesn't let them see because they are broken and she is not.

They were too broken they said to be with each other. The first time she saw them, truly saw how broken they were had been when she had caught them having sex.

They'd been fucking plain and simple. And she'd run away crying not only because she had been dating just Sasuke at the time and not only because Naruto had told her he loved her a week ago and she had done nothing, had ignored him for the week.

But because she knew she loved them. _Her _Boys. She loved them both and she couldn't bear it. She couldn't bear the thought of them leaving her and being with each other. And she couldn't bear the pain. She wanted to take it away and she didn't know how.

And they'd come after her, stony faced and guilt ridden, spouting nonsense.

"Sakura-Chan I'm so sorry. This was all my fault; I'll never talk to you again. I-I'll stay away from you if you want."

"Shut up dobe, it's my fault, I took things too far... Sakura shouldn't have seen that...It it was stupid. I shouldn't have come back-"

And she hit them both then and she kissed them both and she told them to 'Just, Shut up.'

Because she knew they were broken and lying. Too broken to make anything out of their love for each other. And because she saw them, truly saw them and wanted to hold them, she did.

And they cried in her embrace and held back, to confused and wounded and wanting to actually care what happened next.

And she supposed they saw her more than she saw herself, like she saw them more clearly than they could. And when Naruto and Sasuke held her between them sometimes they were trying to keep her from breaking.

But they didn't know that she _was_ breaking.

Every time she felt their pain. Every time she looked at their eyes. Every time Naruto smiled and every time Sasuke would touch her hesitantly, as if asking permission. And she would feel her heart break every time Naruto saw her and Sasuke together and he had that far away look in his eye that said he was left out. And when Sasuke would twitch and sweat and shudder during haunting dreams on long nights.

And she couldn't help it.

And maybe they were all just simply broken and damaged pieces left over from the remnants of crude life.

No there wasn't much significance as to who slept in the middle in their topsy turvy relationship.

Sometimes it was Naruto, who held them both around the waist by his strong tan arms, yet still exuding the sense of an innocent child sleeping between his parents.

And sometimes it was Sasuke, who stiffened at their touch, resisted and relented as they curled into and around him, happy he was back, happy he was theirs and never wanting to let go.

And sometimes it was Sakura, soft and pliant and loving. Welcoming and waiting to hold them to her and love them. Sometimes like a mother, sometimes a sister, a lover, a friend.

Certainly there wasn't always a middle, sometimes it was a circle each facing the other two. And sometimes it was a scalene triangle, confusion as to the lengths and angles of connection. And sometimes there was nothing, nothing but pain and anguish and sorrow.

But somehow they struggled through the perplexity that was their bond. And may be because Naruto was broken by his inheritance and Sasuke was beyond repair from the terrors of the past and Sakura had to bear the burden of knowing and maybe because they were all broken it was that they seemed to fit.

Fit in a way two similarly charged magnets are forced together or a puzzle piece that's been hammered into the wrong place. They fit together bizarrely, defectively, imperfectly. And it was fascinating, enormously radiant and once in a while just simply nice. To be together, to be with another or anothers. It was completing.

So maybe there _was_ some significance as to who slept in the middle, who was taken as the middle of their relationship, the one the others gravitate around, and the one they share.

Still people didn't stop their curious questions, their uncomprehending ways.

"So who sleeps in the middle?"

And she would say "I do."

And then "They do too."

Because there was no middle, only the other.

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**Lilly: Okay there it is, my first NaruSakuSasu, a pairing I've been shipping like crazy for the past few months. And I've been obsessing over writing something for it and whut do I come up with? A Drabble...**

**Laurry: Written between in the time between sleeping and waking and waking and sleeping over a period of a few days. No wonder the grammar's been shot in the head. I now find run-on lines soooo over rated...=.=' and please don't try to count the amounts of Ands this child put in there...**

**Lilly: Yeah I think this idea been used before... the "Who sleeps in the middle thing" Kudo's to whoever did that! But I think I've taken a different angle on it. A strangely different angle on it..actually I don't much get it myself... *sigh* Please review as this is my first fic in this fandom ^-^ and I've been ignoring my other fics cuz of my Narutard ways of late... *goes off to type chapters for AF II ½ * CHA!**

**Laurry: Review please... Constructive criticism and all that jazz...Oh and April if you've read this far...Thank you...but We are soo not gonna pay your Psychiatrists bill...Ja ne...**

**EDIT#1: Reposted...dont ask why it'll make your head hurt...But I'm sad I lost all my reviews and faves! T^T  
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